


True and Faithful

by anonymous_sibyl



Category: Romeo & Juliet - Shakespeare, Shakespeare - Fandom
Genre: Community: femgenficathon, Female Protagonist, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-14
Updated: 2007-08-14
Packaged: 2017-10-03 08:45:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymous_sibyl/pseuds/anonymous_sibyl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I heard it isn't even true. I heard they broke up."</p>
            </blockquote>





	True and Faithful

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://alixnoorchis.livejournal.com/profile)[**alixnoorchis**](http://alixnoorchis.livejournal.com/) for the beta and [](http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/profile)[**inlovewithnight**](http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/) for the inspiration.
> 
> This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/). None of the media or characters written about in my fanfiction belong to me and I make no profit from these works.

_"I heard it isn't even true," said a girl standing with left hand on cocked hip and right throwing a rude gesture at the statue. She lowered her voice conspiratorially, leader to her pack, and the other girls stepped close. "I heard they broke up."_

* * *

Romeo kissed with too much tongue. "Like a fish!" Juliet confided to ten or twenty of her closest friends, voice lifted in drama. "Like a fish in my mouth!"

They shuddered and agreed that was not how a husband should be. They were thirteen, all they knew of husbands came from bitter gossip. The gossip never mentioned fish tongues.

One of the girls grew brave. "He is not right for you."

"Not right. Not right at all," the others echoed.

There was consensus. Romeo was unsuitable.

"It isn't as if I can just dump him," Juliet said. "I mean, he does love me." She sensed she was losing her audience. "Plus my parents hate him." She had them back.

* * *

When Juliet Capulet was a little girl she was infamous for her tantrums.

Hearing the child howling for the third time that day one of the neighbors made an offer to her Nurse. Their daughter was an angel from Heaven, the light of their lives, and Nurses with which to enhance your social standing were in high demand.

"My darling baby needs me."

They were lucky she couldn't be hired. Their daughter married as she was told.

* * *

Romeo told Benvolio that Juliet was vacant. He said that while kissing her he could hear the sounding of the waves in her ears. Servants brought this to supper, and Juliet drank it down with wine.

Wise in the ways of young girls, her mother said not a word. Less wise in the ways of his daughter, her father cursed all Montagues.

The slam of Juliet's door drowned out the roar of the ocean.

* * *

Rosaline took up cooking. Juliet accepted her invitation to sup and found Rosaline a changed woman.

"Romeo? Why, I barely remember our time together." The cakes were growing stale in the open air. "Have another, dear Juliet. Live a little."

Juliet paused, cake halfway to her mouth. Rosaline looked so content. Juliet enjoyed painting and hadn't had enough time to do it since Romeo had started coming around at all hours of the night.

"Have you ever posed for your portrait?" she asked Rosaline. "You and your cakes. I think I could do something with you."

* * *

Capulets cried their grief to the skies when Tybalt was slain. "Oh, Tybalt, woe, Tybalt, he is dead, he is dead."

That he first killed Mercutio, whose happy-go-lucky face Juliet had seen at parties, whose hand she had touched in dance, was of no import. That Romeo was a Montague was all that mattered.

She closed her door and took out her paints. The light was lovely this eve.

* * *

Her mother paced the hall outside her room. Nurse tempted her with food and taunted her with shouts. Her Lord father took himself to the city to dine with his friends. Juliet painted.

"Wherefore art thou Romeo?" she muttered, meaning not that she found sin in being Montague or Capulet, but that she was no longer satisfied with her lot. "Wherefore art thou Juliet?"

* * *

Romeo admired her painting. She had skill he had never dreamt, and thoughts in her heretofore empty head.

"Rosaline?"

"Yes, and cake." Juliet dipped her brush in olive pigment then stroked color onto Rosaline's gown.

"Lovely." He paused with finger a hairsbreadth from wet paint. "Your painting, not Rosaline. Nor her cakes."

She tapped the base of her brush on her teeth. "I liked her cakes."

* * *

Friar Laurence was quietly asked to leave. Capulets, Montagues, and an irate Prince of Verona escorted him out of the city. His influence over their youth too great, his grasp of practicalities too small. No man of God, he, far too base a soul to be embraced.

Romeo missed his confidante. Juliet hardly noticed he was gone. She had become busy.

* * *

Rosaline and Paris married. Juliet gifted them with the portrait Romeo had so admired. Rosaline laughed and divulged that she had made all the sweets served at dinner. "Our servants receive pay to watch me cook, and Paris says he is getting fat!"

Paris greeted her as kinswoman and kissed her cheek. "Your talents have grown, cousin. I could speak to your Lord father on your behalf."

Juliet thought for but a moment before she said yes. Education far from fair Verona suited her.

* * *

Romeo took to drink.

* * *

She left paintings behind, lively Mercutio, unkind Tybalt, once beloved Romeo, herself in shades of grey, lit by candle, childish face the pure wax of death.

She was fourteen and then some. Lady Capulet insisted Nurse travel with her. She agreed to keep the peace and because the old woman needed shelter and tasks to keep her busy. The neighbors had long since stopped making offers to the nurse of wayward Juliet Capulet.

* * *

_One separated herself from the pack. "I heard she never married." She smiled at gasps and pursed her lips to better spill secrets. "Nor did Romeo, though there was talk. I heard she learned to paint."_

"So it wasn't for love?" the youngest of them asked with wobbling lip, thirteen and knowing naught of love but tales of woe and statues gold.

The eldest who had spoken of painting comforted the child. "Of course it was."

She wiped a smudge of paint from her sleeve as she departed, but the girls, searching golden Juliet's eyes for truths did not notice. "All I did was for love."


End file.
